For You I Will
by owlpostagain
Summary: They have a routine. Every day Axel asks Roxas what he's writing, and every day Roxas avoids telling him. Until the day he doesn't. Silly little mini-one-shot/song-fic.


DON'T GET EXCITED. (that was the most narcissistic thing I've ever said...my bad). it's not that great. It's just something to tide me over until I can move on to bigger and better things (in...wait for it...FOUR DAYS WHEN MY THESIS IS DONEEEE WOOOOOOOOOOOO). It's just a little something that I hope will make you smile before we get back to our regular program of 10,000-20,000+ word one-shots and, yes, the multi-chapter story that I'm hoping to have out by this summer.

three important things:  
>1. the lyrics of this song have been altered slightly to make sense.<br>2. the page breaks are song lyrics as Roxas is working on them. the **bold** are the edits he's making and the _italic_ are the original. apparently doesn't believe in strikethroughs.  
>3. you're all really, really awesome.<p>

**things I own**: a hard copy of the Teddy Geiger CD (judge me), a drawer full of Moleskins, several boxes full of Sharpies, reading glasses (I am, in fact, an old woman)

**things I don't own**: all of them. the song, and the title, belong to Teddy Geiger and the album Underage Thinking.

* * *

><p>"Working on anything new today?"<p>

Roxas barely glances up from his Moleskin, fine-tip Sharpie stilling momentarily as he shrugs at the question. He doesn't need to look to identify the speaker; he would have been able to identify that voice out of a crowd 500 strong, and even if he couldn't, Axel was the only person who ever spoke to him in this class anyway.

"Not really," he says quietly, striking out the word he'd just written with a single, steady line through the center.

"Cool. Gonna share this one with the rest of the class when you finish it?" Axel asks, and Roxas knows without looking that he's running his left hand through that crazy auburn hair, right hand holding a single spiral notebook steady against his hip.

"Probably not." This is their routine, the same game they play every day as Axel brushes by Roxas' desk on his way to the front of the room. Axel always asks him what he's working on, scribbling away in his little leather bound notebook, and Roxas always answers as evasively as possible without outright telling the friendly redhead to shove off. If Axel minds he never seems to show it, nor does he ever fail to deviate from the routine.

"Well," and Roxas always looks up for this part, whether he wants to or not, like the smile spreading across Axel's face is a magnet for blue eyes and Roxas can't help but stare and stare and stare as those grinning lips part around the words, "if you ever feel like sharing I'll be the first in line to hear it."

Axel always catches Roxas' eye, like he really means it, smiling just a little longer than necessary as though, just in that moment, just this once a day, every day, five days a week, that smile belongs solely to Roxas. Roxas is always the first to break his gaze away, turning back down towards his notebook the moment he feels the heat beginning to burn in his cheeks, threatening to flood his face with a shade of red only rivaled by Axel's hair. He looks away and Axel continues on to his desk, and before long Riku and Sora show up and either pretend to hit on Axel or actually hit on each other, and then Kairi abandons all pretenses of being coy and drops herself right down into Axel's lap as she fixes his tie, and Roxas hums the melody of whatever song he's working on to drown out the sound of Destiny Islands High's very own A-List crowd either making or recounting weekend plans for parties at Kairi's mansion or hitting the beach for surfing and Sora's dad's famous bonfires.

_Forgive me if I st-stutter  
>through all of the clutter filling my head<br>cause I could drown forever in those eyes._

Once upon a time popularity didn't mean anything more than who had the best Pokemon card and who earned the ultimate title of Line-Leader of the Week, and therefore got to be the first one out to recess. Once upon a time it didn't matter that Roxas was a head shorter than the rest of his classmates and that he had to wear glasses whenever they were reading in class. Nobody made fun of him for being in the most advanced reading group; in fact, most of them were jealous that he got to read _cool_ books like _A Wrinkle in Time _while they were reading books that barely even had chapters.

Once upon a time, Roxas Strife went to Destiny Islands Elementary School, and once upon a time Roxas Strife had a best friend named Axel Sanchez, and when he had a best friend like Axel Sanchez no one cared that Roxas wasn't a very fast runner and wasn't very good at playing capture the flag, that Roxas' mom refused to pack his lunches in ordinary paper bags instead of an insulated, reusable lunch bag. Axel always picked Roxas first when he was the team captain, and he was _always _team captain because even everyone wanted to be on his team, and Axel always exclaimed loudly that it was cool the way Roxas' juice boxes were always still cold, and would he please, please trade his cold apple juice for Axel's lukewarm Yoo-Hoo. Even in elementary school, even before things like a statuesque figure and four consecutive Championship wins on the Varsity Basketball team, people had always gravitated towards Axel like Pooh Bear to honey, so if Axel thought Roxas was cool, then Roxas was cool.

Eventually, though, eventually these things started to matter. Eventually Axel was the only freshman on the varsity team, and eventually Axel was the only freshman _ever_ to be starter in every game, and eventually the upperclassmen on the team were pulling the redhead under their wings, adopting him as their pet project, parading him around through senior parties and midnight trips to the beach, and eventually, when Axel learned how to make those malachite eyes smolder and when to rake his fingers lazily through his hair, to things like the senior prom and backseat make out sessions. The thing was, Axel was _special_, Axel was something to be shown around like a prize horse, but Axel's friends had nothing going for them except being _Axel's friends_, and those upperclassmen had taken one look at Roxas, 13-years-old and barely pushing five feet, a book permanently attached to his hand and reading glasses perpetually perched on his nose, and more or less slammed the door right in his face, no matter how many times Axel tried to invite him along.

Eventually Axel stopped trying, because eventually Roxas stopped coming. Stopped answering his phone, stopped awkwardly sitting at the end of the lunch table where Axel ate with the rest of the team, stopped agreeing to a night just for them, "just the two of us, Rox, to catch up and hang out without any of that craziness," knowing that 45 minutes after Axel was supposed to meet him he'd get a text about the seniors kidnapping him and dragging him to this party or that person's house.

Eventually, life moved on. If they caught each others eye in the hallway Axel would smile or nod his hello, and when they shared a class Axel always acknowledged Roxas at least a little bit, but they stopped trying to change the rules. Axel found himself falling effortlessly into the popular group that had slowly begun forming in eighth grade, the pretties girls and the loudest guys, the ones who just seemed to have that extra..._something_. The ones like Riku, with his exotic silver hair and cat-like eyes, and Sora, with a smile that you could make millions off of if it could be mass-produced as an anti-depressant, and Demyx, the musical prodigy, and Axel, the basketball star.

Roxas...Roxas found himself. He found that having a chance to pick his own electives meant he could fill his schedule with as many English classes as the school offered, and that not having anyone to hang out with after school meant that his parents would be more than happy to pay for him to take guitar lessons three times a week at Arpeggio. Getting a job at the local book store meant a steady supply of Moleskins, which he went through like tissues, and his dad's office supply closet meant he was never in want of a fresh fine-tip Sharpie. High school, he found, was completely manageable if you kept your head down and your grades up. People left him alone and he left them alone, and, frankly, that was how he liked it. In two weeks he would graduate and in two months he would move halfway across the galaxy to spend the next four years at Radiant Gardens University, majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in Music and Composition and he never, ever had to see any of these people ever again.

Axel included.__

**Forgive me if I st-stutter**  
><strong>from all of the clutter <strong>**filling my head  
><strong>**cause I**** can see forever in those eyes**.

"Still editing?"

"Yeah," Roxas doesn't even pause this time, right in the middle of a line that had struck him in the middle of his walk here from Calc, suddenly falling into place in the middle of the missing final verse, something to separate the repeated lines of the bridge. _You always want what you can't have_, he scrawls messily, not caring what his handwriting looked like.

"Any closer to being done?"

"Not yet," the blond frowned, crossing out the _what_ and replacing it with _that which_, only to cross it out again and circle the _what_. Axel shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and it's only after seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye that Roxas realizes he's missing his cue. Biting back a sound that would have landed somewhere between frustration and hesitation, Roxas glances up, already dreading the moment when Axel's envy-green eyes would capture his.

"Well, I'm sure you'll finish it soon. Still can't wait to hear it." And there was that smile, and there was a little something more quirking the corner of Axel's lip, something that in a past life Roxas might have recognized as a sign of amusement, but Roxas is already looking back down at his Moleskin, cheeks red under the tips of his blond bangs.

"I still don't get why you always try to talk to him, he's never nice to you." Roxas' eyes narrow at the sound of Kairi's voice drifting unapologetically towards him, but he still doesn't look up, doesn't do much more than press his Sharpie a little harder against the page, the t in _try _coming out twice as thick as the letters before it. Axel sighs.

"He is too, Kairi." He says quietly, much more quietly than the smaller redhead, but Roxas still hears him, and this time he does glance up, just out of the corner of his eyes, just enough to peer out from under his bangs to see the look on Axel's face. The basketball player's scratching at the hair on the nape of his neck, a classic sign of discomfort he'd retained from childhood.

"Yes, I can see how vague, two-word answers is him being nice, you're so right." Kairi snorts, crossing one thigh over the other and flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Honestly, he should consider himself lucky that you even acknowledge him."

"Don't be a bitch, Kai," Sora hisses, gesturing at Roxas with such blatant head jerks that the blond rolls his eyes. "Roxas is a good guy. Leave him alone."

"I'm not –"

"Drop it, Kairi."

_Nothing here to see  
>Nothing tastes as sweet as<br>__Things I can't have  
><em>

When Roxas and Axel were in third grade, Miss Brightcrest got a boyfriend. The already nurturing, loving young woman was positively _exploding _with sunshine and butterflies and all those happy little secret smiles that come from being in love. After several weeks of watching her face burn pink at a weekly delivery of sunflowers and gushing exclamations of how wonderful the world was, Roxas had come home and asked his mother about love.

Love, she told him, was when two people shared a special bond. He'd already known that, had never been one to toss his mother and father empty "I love yous" without knowing what it meant when he said it. Roxas wanted to know about _romantic_love, the kind that left you blushing and stuttering and glowing the way Miss Brightcrest was.

That kind of love, she told him then, was maybe the most precious kind of all. It's the kind that means you can't imagine living your life without the other person, can't think of anything in the world you wouldn't do for them, can't even begin to explain all the things you like about them, but would be willing to spend eternity trying. Roxas thought about it for a few minutes, quietly munching his way through a bowl of apple slices, before he asked his next question.

Aerith, for her part, barely so much as flinched when Roxas asked her if love had to be between a boy and a girl, like Miss Brightcrest and her boyfriend or his mom and dad, or if two boys or two girls could love each other too. She told him quite calmly, and with a quiet sort of certainty that Roxas himself had never doubted, that any person could love another person, no matter who they were or where they were from, no matter what color they were or what gender they were or what they looked like. All that mattered was that you loved them.

"Well," Roxas had declared, biting down on his last slice of apple before sliding his bowl back across the counter to his mother. "That's good, because I love Axel."

**Nothing seems to be  
>Nothing tastes as sweet as<br>What I can't have **

"Hey."

Even though he recognizes the voice, even though he'd recognize that voice _anywhere_, Roxas still jerks his head up, turning away from his locker to stare up at the boy towering over him. Blue eyes blink once, twice, as he takes in the sight of Axel leaning against the locker next to his, frowning down at him.

"Hi." Roxas says slowly, dragging out the I into almost two syllables, just long enough that he can trail off with a questioning lilt at the end of the greeting. This is a _huge _deviation from their normal interaction; not only did Axel approach Roxas for the second time that day, but it was out in the hallway, at Roxas' locker, at a time when Roxas was sure he didn't usually see the redhead at this side of the school. He ignores the momentary thrill at the thought that not only did Axel seek him out, but he actually knew where Roxas' locker was.

"Listen, I just wanted..." Axel's voice fades away on its own, he eventually wets his lips with the tip of his tongue and tries again, wincing slightly. "I mean, listen, what Kairi said in class today..."

"Don't worry about it," Roxas says quickly, a little gruffer than he means it to be, turning back to his quest to find his stupid graphing calculator in his mess of a locker.

"No, it was rude. I'm sorry," Axel says, apparently finally able to spit the words out.

"It's fine," Roxas reiterates, finally spotting what looks like his calculator wedged into the back corner of his locker. He has to crouch down to reach it, and is surprised to see Axel still standing there when he straightens up again.

"It's not," the redhead says quietly, fingers once again tangled in the hair at the base of his neck. Roxas spares a though, just for a second, on how soft the long red strands must be. "I don't...I don't think I'm some ethereal god you should be awed by the mere presence of."

Well, Roxas thinks soundlessly, that makes one person in this school.

"So?" He says instead, raising a single (pierced, literally his only moment of teenage rebellion in all four years of high school. His mother had though it was cute.) eyebrow at the basketball star.

"I just," and Axel looks so uncomfortable that Roxas is really starting to wonder why the other senior even sought him out in the first place. "I didn't want you to think that I think that. I don't think I'm better than you, Rox. It was wrong of Kairi to insinuate that I should."

Roxas slams his locker shut, ignoring the way the redhead flinches a little at the sound, and reaches down to scoop his backpack off the floor, slinging it over one shoulder, careful not to catch the strap on the black framed reading glasses he's folded over the collar of his t-shirt. When he speaks he does his best to keep his voice even.

"Okay."

_Do you even know me  
>I've passed you in hallways a thousand times.<em>

"Almost d- hey, where's your Moleskin?"

Roxas glances up, registering the surprise in Axel's pointed face as he takes their routine and all but throws it right out the window. He meets the vivid green stare with a small smile on his face, enjoying the way Axel's eyebrow quirks slightly in response. He'd only been working on this song for a few weeks, but he'd been working on this moment for _years_. Not this exact moment, really, but the time when he would finally, finally admit to the redhead what he'd known since he was eight, what hadn't changed even a little bit as he got older, learned what love was for his own, redefined it and molded it and all the while, it still applied to Axel. Roxas couldn't wait to graduate, couldn't wait to graduate and leave the tiny little school and this tiny little town and never come back, but he couldn't graduate next week without doing just one thing first.

"It's done. I finished it last night." He tells the redhead. Axel's face breaks out into a wide smile, and Roxas knows that its genuine, that it's always been genuine, but today it actually feels like it.

"That's awesome! When do I get to hear it?" Axel asks excitedly, and he's really not leaving Roxas much room to say no, even if he wanted to. Roxas takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly before parting his lips, dragging his teeth nervously across the bottom one.

"Tonight. At the senior showcase. You should be there."

"Roxas," Axel promises, broad smile still on his face, green eyes sparkling under the pressure. "I'll be sitting in the front row."

**Do**** I seem familiar  
>I've passed you in hallways a thousand times.<strong>

Axel is actually sitting in the front row.

Roxas can see him from where he was standing in the wings, peering out from behind the curtain to peek at the audience, even though he knows better. Axel sat himself in the front row, almost dead center, and the only one of his friends with him is Demyx. Demyx, the musical genius, works at the music store where Roxas takes lessons, and is the only one of Axel's friends who ever gives Roxas the time of day.

Well, he tells himself, fingers tightening around the neck of his acoustic guitar. That's alright. He knows that you can't see much further back than the second row anyway when all the stage lights are on, and this way Axel will _know _that Roxas is singing for him.

He takes the stage quietly but without hesitation, perching himself on the stool in front of the mic stand, adjusting the two microphones so that one is pointed towards his guitar, the other near his lips. Roxas finds Axel's eyes in the audience, it's easy with him right there like that, and the redhead smiles encouragingly.

"Most of you have probably never talked to me." Roxas says into the microphone, and there's no anger or bitterness, just a calm statement of fact. "And that's okay, because I never really had much to say to any of you anyway. I do have one thing to say though, and I'll never forgive myself if I leave here without saying it. This is a song I wrote, called 'For You I Will.'"

He was only planning on sparing one quick glance Axel's way before he started, but he finds it infinitely harder than expected to look away when those malachite eyes, wide with amusement at Roxas' words, meet his effortlessly. Hard enough, in fact, that he's still staring as his fingers start feeling out the opening chords of the song.

_Wandering the streets  
><em>_In a world underneath it all  
><em>_Nothing seems to be  
><em>_Nothing tastes as sweet as what I  
><em>_can't have._

Roxas finally drags his eyes away halfway through the first verse, glancing down at the guitar cradled in his lap. Axel was in the front row, but he's still at least fifteen feet away, and sitting in the dark, it's impossible the way his eyes are so bright, expression so clear even from this far. The smile hasn't left his face, just morphed slightly, a little smaller and a little more thoughtful. Roxas takes another breath.

_Like you_  
><em>and the way that you're threading your hair<em>  
><em>through your fingers.<em>  
><em>Tonight I'm not afraid to tell you<em>  
><em>What I feel about you.<em>

It's almost funny the way Axel slowly drops the hand that had wound itself into his hair, combing through the long red strands in that way he always did when he was talking to Roxas. The basketball player studies the guilty fingers with an unusual expression on his face before glancing back up at Roxas. The blond wets his lips carefully as he takes another breath, willing his voice not to shake as Axel's eyes meet his own.

_Oh I'm gonna muster every ounce of confidence I have  
>and cannon ball into the water.<br>I'm gonna muster every ounce of confidence I have  
>For you I will.<br>For you I will._

He's blushing, he knows it. Axel's gone completely still in his seat, staring up at him like he's not really sure if he's hearing Roxas correctly, like maybe Roxas is singing something in another language that just _sounds _like English words that Axel recognizes. Roxas can feel the fire on his cheeks as he tries to look away, frozen in place at Axel's suddenly fierce stare. _I _dare_ you_, those eyes were telling him. _I _dare_ you to look away again, to hide from me._

_Forgive me if I st-stutter_  
><em>From all of the clutter in my head<em>  
><em>Cause I can see forever in those eyes<br>__not broken promises._

_Do I seem familiar?  
><em>_I've crossed you in hallways a thousand times.  
><em>_No more camouflage,  
><em>_I wanna be exposed,  
><em>_and not be afraid to fall._

Roxas does dare He closes his eyes anyway, right after watching the way Axel winces at the line about broken promises. When he finally opens them, because this is the last verse and he has to look, has to know that Axel's gotten the message, because otherwise what the hell is he _doing _up here, Axel is ready for redhead, it seems, has understood the message perfectly. He meets Roxas' eyes without hesitation, and the second he's sure he has Roxas' attention Axel mouths a single word, tapping one finger against his own chest in case Roxas doesn't understand.

Roxas, squeezing his eyes shut before lowering his gaze back down to his guitar, nods.

_I'm gonna muster every ounce of confidence I have  
><em>_and cannon ball into the water.  
><em>_I'm gonna muster every ounce of confidence I have.  
><em>_For you I will.  
><em>_You always want what you can't have  
><em>_But I've got to try.  
><em>_I'm gonna muster every ounce of confidence I have.  
><em>_For you I will.  
><em>_For you I will.  
><em>_For you I will.  
><em>_For you..._

Roxas opens his eyes to applause like he'd _never _expected, shocked at the reminder that yes, actually, there was a whole auditorium full of people other than Axel. The reminder is short lived, his interest in the praise negligible.

Axel is gone.

Axel has disappeared from his seat next to Demyx, who shrugs at the blond's questioning look even as he claps his hands furiously for Roxas' performance. Roxas...

Well, Roxas had expected this, really. He had never gone into this with any sort of hope or agenda, had known from the very beginning that the odds of Axel actually understanding, and then reciprocating, had been about the same as the odds of Roxas being elected Prom King (Roxas, for the record, had not even gone to prom). It was why he'd waited so long; the last day of classes was tomorrow, it would be easy to avoid Axel between now and August.

Roxas nods his head once in thanks, blushing again, fighting down the disappointment that he thought he'd been prepared for. He keeps one hand tight around his guitar as he pushes himself to his feet, barely noticing as the applause dies out rather suddenly, or that the footsteps echoing across the stage aren't his own.

He doesn't notice, in fact, until he walks right into something warm and solid, stumbling backwards slightly before two hands reach out and grab him, steadying him. They're still almost center stage, with a packed auditorium watching them, but Roxas doesn't remember any of that as he slowly drags his eyes up from the floor, lapis lazuli skimming over red Chuck Taylors, faded jeans, a black t-shirt, and finally, horrifyingly, a pair of malachite eyes.

"Did you actually mean it?"

Roxas flinches and tries to look away, but one of Axel's hands moves from his bicep to grip the blond's chin, keeping his head steady and forcing him to hold his gaze.

"Look at me, Roxas. Look at me and tell me if you mean it." Axel demands, and even though his grip isn't particularly tight, Roxas finds himself unable to pull away. Trembling, guitar hanging from limp fingers to balance on the stage, Roxas press his lips together before parting them slowly.

"Yes."

"Good."

And Roxas doesn't even have a chance to process what that might mean, why that might be good, because Axel is using the hand on his arm to pull him forward and the hand on his chin to tilt his head up and suddenly there are a pair of lips pressed against Roxas' own and he doesn't really remember moving but he must have because his entire body is flush up against Axel's and the fingers of his free hand are threaded through impossibly soft red hair and Axel's hand has moved from gripping his chin to cupping his jaw and _seriously when did this happen?_

The auditorium is silent when he pulls away. Complete, cricket-chirping silence, like people aren't even breathing, too busy _gaping _at the pair wrapped around each other, faces barely a breath apart as Roxas stares dumbfounded up at Axel. The redhead is the first to pull back completely, tilting his head up to press a second kiss to the tip of Roxas' nose before leaning back, though not letting go of Roxas entirely. He shifts his arms to thread them loosely around Roxas' waist.

"You idiot," Axel says softly, but his voice is laced with such amusement and fondness that Roxas, still in a daze, can hardly take any offense to it. "You should have sang it to me the very first time I asked you to."

"I...what..." Roxas' brain is in overdrive, scrambling to catch up to what's going on, scrambling to figure out what the hell Axel is saying to him and why it included the most mind-blowing kiss Roxas ever could have imagined and why everyone in the room is staring at them like they're some kind of prime time drama.

"It's always been you, Rox. Don't you know that?" And Axel is grinning at him, smiling at him the way he always does when he asks Roxas what he's working on, and Roxas is starting to realize that that smile really _is _meant just for him and him alone, and it's kind of like waking up on Christmas morning hoping you'd get a book and finding an entire library under your tree, because Roxas is pretty sure he's just gotten everything he ever wanted in the world and all he can do it gape. Axel seems amused by it, leaning forward again to press another kiss to the corner of Roxas' mouth, laughing lightly at the shell-shocked expression on the blond's face.

"It's always been you." 

* * *

><p>lalalalala you love me and my cheesiness, yes you dooooo. now tell me to stop procrastinating and finish my thesis.<p> 


End file.
